After lunch yesterday with Jon and Maria, Jon told me that he still didn’t know what I do every day, reading my blog.  He also said that he didn’t feel like he knew much about me. He likes the blogs, likes the writing, but wants to feel more of me there.  “Caught,” I thought.

The conversation came around to hiding, to fear.  I talked about not wanting people to know too much of my life.  “Why?’ he said.  I thought that I might burst into tears. The feeling was like the moment before an avalanche.  A huge cliff of hanging snow about to plunge down the mountain, obliterating everything before it.  “I am afraid,” I answered.

“Why?” he asked again.  I talked about the kind of fear and vigilance that I carry.  Twenty-six years married to the same woman.  The love of my life.  And in the world, I walk around with this mantle of fear and caution.  Not all the time, but often.  It seeps into my writing.  It colors how much I will say, how much of myself I will show.

I didn’t talk about age, or even about how I hide my age. I will talk about it later.  I am not sure how much of the fear and hiding I can unravel in one post.

I think that is why I loved being with Rocky. Why I love my horses, Capprichio, Amadeo and Sanne, and why I spend time every week with Nelson.  They do not care about any of that.  They care that I am there, that I am present with them.  And when I am with them, I don’t care about any of those things either.  It all falls away.  Dissolved in love and in the moment.